front wheel torque

I removed my front wheel to paint it. When I put it back together I go to torque the wheel it keeps drawing the rotor towards the inside of the fork. I loosed it up to evenly space it and to put the cotter pin in. The wheel is evenally spacer but the but is not at its proper torque. What should I do ?

 

Which bike do you have? Sounds to me like you're missing a spacer.

 

81 Xj650. I do have the spacer between the right fork and wheel.

 

how about a picture?

 

Are you following the procedure in the FSM?

Install axle and tighten to 77.4 ft-lbs, install a new cotter pin
Install the front fender
Compress the forks several times to verify operation
Tighten the axle pinch bolt to 14.5 ft-lbs

And, after install, pump the front brake several times and release - verify drag is not excessive when rotating front wheel

A picture would be good as Ribo suggested just to be sure we understand what you are describing.

 

Did you put the speedometer drive back on the left side?

 

^^^^ that's kinda what i was thinking too but a picture is worth 1000 words.

 

Yea that thing dangling by the cable up against head pipes not included in parts pile on floor
The kind of thing that happens when your working on your bike at 1am after kids and wife in bed

 

Tighten the pinch bolt LAST..... If you do that first, you'll have all kinds of problems....

 

I have a FSM and when I tighen the axle nut to toque the wheel walks to the left edge and the rotor begins to run on the inner fork. I'm an auto mechanic and I assume you torque the nut with the front tire on the ground. Then tighten the pintch bolt...etc. I included pictures.

 

I'm not seeing anything obvious here - I'm assuming that's the spacer on the oposite side to the disk in the photo and not the axle.

Here are the same shots of mine that i recently removed to replace the tires etc.

Sounds to me just from a physics perspective that when you tighten the nut there's some space between it and the other side of the bike that is allowing you to tighten it too much cos there's nothing to stop it. did you check the wheel bearings haven't fallen out or the internal spacer - At this point I would take it off and start pulling it apart and accounting for everything show in this picture from the haynes manual.

Edit: Just re-reading your post - I'm not a mechanic but i would think that torquing the nut with the wheel on the ground could be an issue if there is some miss-alignment and the wheel needs to seat itself correctly. I could be wrong but I would think it better to allow everything to freely-ish move to come together. When I did mine I did have the wheel on the ground but most of the weight was taken by a jack between the pipes.

 

Tony did you replace wheel bearings during repaint?

 

It looks to me like you may not have the pinch bolt out when you are tightening the axle nut. The pinch bolt side has to be completey slack so the fork tube does not hang up on the axle. If it does hang up you can use a rubber mallet to gently persuade the fork leg back over to the left. The fork leg should contact the spacer. You may need to loosen the fneder bolts also. The fender has a fork brace and that can also keep the fork legs from aligning correctly if it is tight.

 

And we'll keep saying that, too... Lol

 

I'm going to take it back apart after work. I didn't remove the wheel bearing at all and the seal on the left side is even with the fork. So, I should lift up the bike again and remove the fender. Remove the axle and assemble as such: fork, spacer, wheel, speedo housing, fork. Tighened for to spec even though it draws the whole wheel over to the left side fork where the rotor is. Lower the lift, Jounst the front forms then tighen the pinch bolt.

 

look at Ribo's second picture. the brake disk fits over a lip on the wheel. The silver part just to the left of the speedo drive. Is yours like that? hard to tell in the pic

PS. i tighten the pinch bolt first, then the axle nut, then loosen the pinch bolt, smack it around a bit, bounce the forks, then tighten again. So really i tighten it first and last.

 

The fender doesn't have to come off. Just loosen the mounting bolts.

 

If something is happening WITH tension that doesn't feel right don't continue. Something isn't seated right here. Did you grease the axle? maybe that's catching on the internal spacer? Take a look at it too and make sure there's no nic's and that it's 100% straight.

Tap the axle all the way through as far as you can with a rubber mallet before adding the nut.

 

Only 5 things will make the rotor touch the fork
1 too much paint or powder coat moving disc over
2 failed wheel bearing
3 speedo drive internal sleeve worn due to bad wheel bearing
4 inner hole in wheel worn due to bad wheel bearing
5 wrong brake rotor